DESCRIPTION FOR CENTER APPLICATION (provided by the investigator): The mission of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) Prevention Research Center (PRC) is to develop community-academic partnerships for preventing and managing obesity and related conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, through community-responsive interventions. This category 2 application is a collaboration between the UMMS and organizations throughout Worcester, Massachusetts. Our collaborators include state and local health departments, health care systems and community health Centers, and local agencies and organizations. The proposed PRC operates under the guiding principle that public health problems affecting our community are complex and that a range of partners with different expertise and capabilities are needed to address them. A goal is to establish the PRC as a Center of excellence for interdisciplinary and inter-professional community-based prevention research that focuses on health and health disparities throughout central Massachusetts through core infrastructure development. Grounded in community-based research methods, our goal will be achieved by improving: a) community capacity to develop, adapt and implement evidence-based obesity prevention and control interventions and b) academics'capacity to work with communities. Key activities of the PRC include: 1) developing and maintaining an effective Advisory Committee comprised of representatives of university faculty the local and state health departments, public health clinicians and practitioners, the Area Health Education Center and grass-roots community agencies;2) engaging the community to establish a clear research agenda using community-based participatory research principles;3) developing and implementing training programs to establish a public health and research workforce that has essential knowledge and skills;4) developing, implementing and testing intervention research studies;5) effectively communicating research findings and disseminating evidence-based programs to participating organizations, the Worcester community, the scientific community and other stakeholders;and 6) systematically evaluating the PRC infrastructure, processes, and research study and dissemination results using an established logic model as a guiding framework.